Long Overdue
by Link Beyond
Summary: An ungrateful grandson sends his Grandma a long overdue gift. Oneshot.


_A/N: I've been working on a Handsome Jack story on and off for the last 3 months. So what do I do to take a break? Write a Handsome Jack story. And after several nervous days of editing, here it goes. Set just prior to the quest To Grandmother's House We Go. _

_Enjoy._

* * *

A tape. A God damn video tape. So that was how the ungrateful brat thanked her after all those years spent dragging him up. Her good-for-nothing son hadn't done a very good job, treating the boy like some kind of precious porcelain doll and then going off and getting killed along with his overbearing wife. Had she taught him _nothing_?

If you wanted something done properly, you did it yourself. Preferably with a buzz axe in hand.

Grandma hobbled her away across the gritty living area, carrying the unwrapped package that had been unceremoniously blasted through the atmosphere in little more than a space junk grade padded envelope. Not even first class. That boy could be such a disrespectful little worm.

He'd dumped her here, you know. Here, on this lump of polluted rock surrounded by inbred nincompoops. Pandora, he'd said, would be the perfect place for her to spend retirement now he'd conquered it. He'd even arranged for his goons to shuttle her across the galaxy to her new abode.

Goons indeed! Back in her day, she'd have taken over Pandora with nothing but a penknife, some strawberry preserve and a thimble. A creative thinker, that's what she'd been called. He obviously hadn't inherited much from her side of the family. Flooding the planet with soldiers and loaders... And God only knew how much money he'd have thrown at doing it! Back in the day, you became an intergalactic dictator on a shoestring and you felt darn proud of yourself if you still had the change to buy yourself a sticky bun on the way home.

Finally reaching the decrepit cathode ray tube display that had so kindly been provided for her alongside the tape player that made grinding noises whenever it was in operation, Grandma bent down and posted the ghastly rectangle of plastic into the slot. She gave the contraption a wallop on top when it didn't take it. The screen flickered to static, alternating between excessively loud and infuriatingly quiet as the machine churlishly considered whether to play it or not.

The old woman straightened herself, bones popping, and made her way to the pallet bed that doubled as a sofa. She rubbed her sore hip absently as she sat.

The static on the screen parted like an electronic curtain, and there he was. 'Handsome Jack', or so he called himself now, sitting in front of a projection of the yellow and black Hyperion livery. To her he'd always been the same frightened child, only now he hid behind a mask and fancy words. She felt her dry lips curl.

"Why hello there, Granny! Long-time no see. How ya been?" He tilted his head towards the camera, hand behind his ear as if waiting for a response. Granma didn't feel inclined to oblige. "Mhm. Mhm. That's _wonderful_, Grandma. How've I been? Oh, you know, busy running a pan-galactic corporate empire. Did you ever have an empire, Granny? Did ya?"

Her hand twitched involuntarily, the one nearest her beloved axe that hung on a loop from her belt. His 'President of Hyperion' persona grated on her.

_If you were here, boy_, she threatened silently. _I'm not too old to give you what for_.

Jack laughed. It was an ugly sound.

"Well, look at me getting all off track. You see, Grandma, I had a realisation. There's something I really ought to get off my chest."

He took a deep breath, looking down with a phoney contrition before making eye contact with the camera. Mismatched eyes, she noted. He couldn't even get a new face made up properly. The old one hadn't been much to write home about, but _honestly_!

"You... You were such a big part of my life. You taught me so much. Remember all those lessons, Grandma? I do. I really do."

"Pah!" She couldn't help it, the exclamation of disbelief passed her lips as involuntarily as the rain of spittle that accompanied it. Grandma prided herself on being a calm, balanced individual, but when it came to _him_ her emotions (exclusively negative ones) tended to get the better of her.

His image blurred, splitting into wavy lines before fading in to a scene that was indeed familiar.

Her kitchen. Well, not her actual kitchen, but a computerised reconstruction. She had spent a great deal of time in that room, shackled their by a society that thought females should be domestics, not despots. It was white, all sterile, gleaming tiles with unblemished grouting. The fittings were a slightly darker shade, barely grey, and had the look of medicine cabinets. She'd always found it strangely fulfilling to clean, to get those tiles back to their unblemished state.

Was that pixilation she could see on those familiar tiles? Grandma sniffed. Money and power clearly did not buy the services of a good animator.

Two figures entered the virtual room.

The first was a young boy, somewhere around the age of 7 by the looks of it. The black hair was too shiny, the eyes too big and too blue, but she recognise who it was meant to be. Vain idiot.

The second was an imposing figure, hustling the child into the room with jerky, poorly reconstructed movements. A woman, tall and terrible, all permed iron hair and blood red lips. A tinge of pink powder brightened her otherwise grey cheeks, and her eyes were dark with kohl. She didn't just wear make-up, no - this was war paint. Those eyes that she'd highlighted, they glowed like hot coals from the fires of Hell. When she parted her lips in what could have been a smile, her teeth were pointed fangs.

Grandma felt a glow of pride. It might not have been accurate, but it was definitely her.

_"Fear, my boy, is a lesson well all must learn."_ The demonic woman crowed, her voice sounding distinctly like Jack on a voice modulator.

_"But Grandmother-"_

The boy's words, spoken softly in an angelic voice that categorically was not Jack, were cut off as the woman raised her hand.

_"Buts are for nanny goats! You want to grow up strong, don't you?"_

She reached round to unhook a crudely rendered buzz axe from her belt.

_"Yes, Granny."_

_"Not like your puny father?"_

_"No, Granny."_

_"So listen up, and listen good. Fear."_ Her voice savoured the word like a wine taster, swilling before spitting the rest of the sentence. _"Fear is the great leveller. All people feel it. Fear will keep you alive, but fear can also kill you. And you know why?"_

The boy was quaking now, cartoonish, exaggerated movements which brought a smile to both real and CG Grandma's lips.

_"Fear evolved to protect us from danger, but it can also trap us. To feel fear and not be prepared for it leads only to death. So to be truly strong, we must..?"_

The question hung pointedly. The boy blinked his baby-blue eyes.

_"We must know true fear in order to overcome it."_

The demon-woman's face ignited into a rictus grin at the worlds she'd drilled metaphorically into his skull.

_"Exactly."_

The picture on the video screen blurred out to static.

The boy screamed.

The sound continued for what seemed like hours, accompanied by the dance of pixels falling across the screen like snow. It faded slowly, so slowly, as the image returned to the ever-smug President of Hyperion.

"You would not believe how much I had to pay the kid to scream like that. That and tell him his dog was dead." He paused. "Not that the dog was dead. I'm not a monster."

No, thought Grandma. Just a fool with an uncivilised haircut and an ego big enough to make the Destroyer of Worlds look like a grain of sand.

"But you see Grandma; while I respect your lessons I can't help but think you were wrong."

She inhaled sharply, sitting up a little straighter. How dare he? He knew nothing. He didn't even have the gall to confront her face-to-face. He'd found drive and determination, she'd give him that, but he was still a coward. Rage, burning to be released, welled up inside her. She only just restrained herself from putting her buzz axe through his repugnant face on the screen.

"I know, I know. But just here me out, 'kay?" He took a deep, what in any other sincere person would have been described as a steadying breath. "As you pointed out many times before I escaped your grasping claws, I was all set to go down the same route as my dearest Dad. You remember, that whole latching on to stronger people, marrying a dominating woman, doing a job for a boss who walks all over me, and just sitting back and taking it? Well, you know what Granny? I..."

He trailed off uncomfortably. Grandma smirked. It was the first genuine emotion he'd shown through this whole one-sided exchange.

"Like you implied, I lived in fear. There. I said it. You happy now?" He rolled his eyes. "Bah, course you aren't. But anyway. What I wanted to come to was that something _happened_. Something that opened my eyes and made me realise that your lesson on 'knowing fear' wasn't quite right. Y'see, it's not just about knowing fear, it's knowing how to _use_ fear. Specifically, other people's fear. And boy, do I have a way to do that."

His face twisted into something that wasn't quite a smile. There was something sly about it.

"Say Gran-Gran, did you know you had a great-granddaughter?"

Grandma felt the blood rush through her ears in a hot, painful wave of humiliation. She hadn't even suspected the little creep of procreating. Even when he'd had her shipped to Pandora, he'd said nothing of a child. It didn't matter that he'd said nothing at all to her for the last fifteen odd years; he should have said this. A phone call, if he was too afraid to meet her. A letter. Semaphore, even. She would have held him in more contempt than she already did, but to withhold something this significant completely…

Her horrible grandson shrugged, casually inspecting impeccably manicured nails.

"It must have just slipped my mind."

Curse him. He knew how to get under her skin, like the parasite he was.

"Off track again. Must be all these little trips down memory lane." Jack sighed with mock nostalgia. "I am stronger now, Grandma. And it's because of you. So I wanted to give you something. A gift, along with this lil' old message. It should be with you shortly, so I should really wrap things up."

He flashed a perfect smile. Perfectly vile.

"Enough blathering and get to the blasted point!"

Grandma hissed through her teeth, angry that she'd been goaded into talking to a video recording. Jack's eyes smirked at her in a faintly disturbing way.

There was a knock at the door.

It was an oddly polite sound, and from her experience Pandora was not a polite place. On her first day in her new 'retirement home', she'd had to chase away a psychopath with nothing but her long-deceased husband's shotgun. Her eyes flickered over to where it sat uselessly in the corner, out of ammunition and slightly bent from where she'd hit the crazed man with it.

"Because of you Grandma, I am what I am. I would never have thought of _half_ the things I've done without you." Jack paused, looking down to his pocket watch before raising an eyebrow as the door vibrated from another sharp rap of knuckles on the rusted metal surface. "You gonna get that?"

Faintly disquieted, Grandma stood and made hesitantly towards the door. Jack watched her expectantly from the screen, seeming uncannily aware for a recording. His eyes… No, make that _eye,_ seeing as only one of them seemed to belong to him and not the mask, held no fear. No uncertainty.

She'd last seen him making his escape across the front lawn, an arrogant boy who let fear drive him through life. Oh, she'd seen all the Hyperion propaganda, heard his conceited sales patter. She'd assumed it all just a well-acted façade. But those eyes did not belong to John the frightened child who had cowered against the tiles. Not even the one that was still biologically his.

What else had changed beneath the mask in the last fifteen years?

She didn't care for this one bit. Her hand dropped to the axe hilt. She noted was growing concern that her fingers were trembling.

"I wonder if you're really _prepared_ for this. This is long overdue, but... What I'm trying to say is..."

Her free hand gripped the door handle, sliding on the cool metal from the uncharacteristic sheen of sweat that now coated her palms. What was this? She hadn't felt this kind of trepidation in a long time.

_Foolish woman!_ She berated herself. _It's your lesson._ _He can't teach you anything you don't already know._

She opened the door.

"Thank you, Grandma."

The screen, and everything else, went black.


End file.
